Avatar impressions (no spoilers)

	crashandannie wrote:
	Will anyone be watching this movie 10-20-30 years from now? 5 years from now? When was the last time you watched Dances with Wolves? Or Titanic?

Pretty recently on both, actually. GREAT movies.

Avatar is in the same league. It's one of those classics that will be talked about forever. It's that good. IMHO.

Okay, that was kind of a dickish post, just flatly stating a contradictory opinion. Sorry for that.

Lemme say this, though. The common opinion of the film's detractors seems to be that its technology is great and its story is weak. I don't agree, but aside from either of those elements there's something very important at work in "Avatar". A sense of WONDER. It's created partly by the technology, partly by the script. But mostly just by brilliant, brilliant execution. That sense of wonder is an exceedingly rare thing in movies these days, and I think it's playing a huge part in the movie's success. Cameron nailed it.

Check out this quote from an article written by a biologist in the New York Times: "...the director James Cameron’s otherworldly tale of romance and battle, aliens and armadas, has somehow managed to do what no other film has done. It has recreated what is the heart of biology: the naked, heart-stopping wonder of really seeing the living world. And while the movie’s dazzling animation and use of 3-D has received so much attention, it cannot be anything but the intense wonder so powerfully elicited, rather than merely the technical wizardry itself, that has people lining up to see it."

To deviate from the merits of whether or not it was a good film, I noticed something in my own experience related more to perceptual psychology.

As the movie started, I noticed that it had the old viewmaster multiplane effect. After a few minutes, the effect disappeared. After a bit longer, I no longer perceived it as 3D.

From an animation standpoint, I found everything to be realistic, but my memory of it is that it looked animated. My knowledge that it was animated has changed the images in my memory.

Anyone else notice anything like this?

One of the very few movies I've been able to watch from the perspective of a viewer and not a filmmaker. I loved Avatar, and I miss being in that jungle for three hours...

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	Quote:
	It has recreated what is the heart of biology: the naked, heart-stopping wonder of really seeing the living world.

What's sad is that the above quote isn't a joke.

All the animals have six limbs, except the tall skinny blue people. I guess they didn't evolve there, although they must have if they have the built-in firewire port for communicating with flying reptiles. Not that this inconsistency matters at all -- there's no biological wonder in AVATAR -- it's purely a fantasy movie, like LORD OF THE RINGS, but with more opportunities for additional revenue streams from video games (Run through the forest! Kill big threatening beasts!). I didn't realize the horses had six legs until reading the "Cinefex" article on the movie. They just looked like and moved like real horses to me. I'm not an expert equestrian, but I ride a little. Horses are horses.

For amazing animal effects, nothing can beat the *herd* of woolly mammoths in QUEST FOR FIRE. Not to mention two cougars playing the roles of sabre-toothed tigers ...

That said, I completely agree that the production design team people are the real heroes of this movie. James Cameron works with the best. That the actors could actually create performances while wearing football helmets is another achievement.

Of course, one of the most interesting parts of the AVATAR movie experience was the trailer for the Disney remake of ALICE IN WONDERLAND.

-- Paul

Not to keep dredging this up, but there is a really excellent interview with Cameron on the WGA site where he talks at length about the process of writing "Avatar". He convincingly addresses head-on all the criticisms: that the story is too simple, that it's predictable, that it's "Pocahontas" or "Dances With Wolves", etc. And he pretty much goes into every major creative decision that went into writing the movie. It's a fantastic interview with a very smart writer.

http://media.wgaw.org/audio/Cameron_Feeney.mp3

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"Dumbass Rocket Scientist", a dumbass short. View it now on YouTube.

I saw it in 2d on a small tv--and yet I was very much impressed by the fx from the stand point of creating an artificial world that was convincingly real-and by the advances in character animation-especially facial emotion capture.
It was definitely the most significant jump since Jurassic Park and much of the credit goes to Cameron because few if anyone else would be as demanding as him. We could have had many movies that show someone on the back of a flying creature but he shot it as if we were watching a skydiver and the camera was falling alongside it. On a raw escapist film level--it delivered in what was a very difficult thing to do--the wonder factor. At that was just by watching it in 2d at home-I can imagine what a big screen and 3d might have presented for the viewer.
I liked the visual look although the blue cat people seemed very retro-like pre-Star Wars aliens, but I can understand why such decisions were made.

Story and character wise-I do think it was weak. Some have compared it to Star Wars but although that was a simple story the characters had more oomph and the budget wasnt a couple hundred million. Star Wars was a serial, I went in expecting a little more sophisticated science fiction story--the human side in the story was really vaguely addressed.

The bad guy military man reminded me of Chip Hazard from Small Soldiers but the toy was more emotional(he wept over a fallen comrade lol).

I dont think anyone would say Cameron was the most sophisticated writer and his most dramatic works came when he was collaborating(i.e. Gale Anne Hurd), but it did surprise me how vaguely drawn the characters were and the lack of punch to the dialogue.

But getting back to the technical achievement I think it is remarkable that Cameron succeeded in getting an emotional twang out of a jaded cynic like me in one or two places-such as the shot of the blue girl holding Worthington.
If the effects werent 100 percent seamless it would have distracted.

My favorite shot was the slow motion of the warrior throwing soldiers off the ship.

But I dont really have an interest in rewatching it.